


Underground Wires

by eggnogged



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Genderswap, girl!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 01:40:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggnogged/pseuds/eggnogged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s hard enough being a teenage girl even without all the extra crap: they move around all the time, her family is as far removed from normal as it’s possible to get, and she’s in love with her older brother. Sam has no control on any of it, she’s just trying to stay afloat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underground Wires

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Sam&Dean 2012 Mini-Bang 2012, hosted by the wonderful people at samdean_otp on LiveJournal. Thanks to the mods for all your hard work! Big thanks to the_reverand who held my hand the whole way and even wrote me Dean POV ficlets set in this verse because she is awesome that way. <3 I am super grateful to clex_monkie89 for saving the day at the very last minute with an art pinch-hit, you're my hero! Title from The Past is a Grotesque Animal by Of Montreal. It's a 12 minute epic and you should listen to it.

_do you know, no matter where we are  
we're always touching by underground wires_

*

They say that every little girl's first love is her daddy, but that isn't true for Sam. Sam’s first love is her brother.

When Dean wants to embarrass Sam, he’ll remind her that when she was four years old, she used to say that when they were all grown up, she and Dean would get married. She doesn’t think that anymore, she’s not an idiot, but she thinks that it just goes to show that she never had a chance, that she was screwed up from the very start.

*

Sam’s senior year starts in Clinton County, New York, in a small town near the Canadian border.

There’s a hunt somewhere nearby, that’s the only reason they’re here (the only reason they’re ever anywhere), but the good news is that with school starting up again, Dad can’t force them to live out of the car anymore, at least not for a little while. After a summer on the road and a different state every two days, Sam’s grateful for the small luxury of the house on the edge of town. It doesn’t even really matter what part of the country it’s in.

It’s more of a cottage than a house, really, and it’s old, but in good shape compared to some other houses they’ve rented or squatted in over the years. Sam likes it from the moment she sees it from the passenger seat of the Impala, the square little blue thing with the white porch that spans the whole width of the house, the two square windows with lace curtains that make them look like sleepy eyes on each side of the red door. The lawn is overgrown but there’s a flower bed under each window, and it looks familiar and comforting, like a child’s drawing of what a house should look like. It’s houses like these that Sam used to draw in school when she was little, with stick figures of her and Dean and of Mom and Dad standing in front of it, like all of the other children in school did. The first time she brought one home to show to her father, his face twisted and he picked her up and held her so tight that it scared her a little. She kept very still while Dad held her in shaky arms for a long time, breathing heavy like when he was hurt, the drawing half-crumpled in her hand and Dean watching them with big sad eyes from the kitchen table. Sam stopped drawing houses after that.

Dean smiles when they pull up in the driveway. He’s tired from the long drive but he looks quietly pleased, like the house is a gift he knew she would like. “Look, Sammy, it even has a picket fence.”

Sam can’t help grinning in return. “If it has a decent bathtub too, then I’m never leaving.” 

It does have a bathtub, an old footed one that will be amazing once she scrubs it clean. Sam has her own room, too, and she doesn’t even mind that it’s in the attic and that she has to use an ancient narrow staircase to reach it. The roof is too low for her to stand fully upright and it’s pretty dark in there, with just a small round window to let in the sunlight and nothing but a bare lightbulb above the bed for lighting, but it’s _hers_. The double mattress (propped up on some crates rather than a boxspring) takes up most of the small space and it’s a huge improvement over fighting with Dean over who has to sleep on the rollout bed in each new motel room. In here she can read as late as she wants without anyone bitching about the light and she doesn’t have to put up with her father’s snoring.

The next best thing about the house is the kitchen. It’s nothing special, just a small room with outdated decor and ancient noisy appliances, but it signifies the end of a two month long stretch of nothing but take-out pizza and roadside diner food. Dean isn’t a cook by any stretch of the imagination but he makes _the best_ mac and cheese. The macaroni is always perfectly cooked, with just the right amount of butter blended in and a bunch of chopped up hot dogs thrown in (“It’s not the same without the hot dogs”, Dean says). It’s stupid, but she’s been craving it for weeks.

There’s musty crocheted doilies on the end tables and some frankly appalling wallpaper in every room: dead-eyed, sinister-looking ducklings in the bathroom, something that’s probably supposed to be cornucopias in the kitchen, and faded sunflowers in living room. The house is reasonably clean, though, and Sam is immediately taken with it.

Sam’s sitting on the ancient floral-patterned couch and watching the local news broadcast when Dean emerges from the kitchen and hands her a bowl of macaroni. They’d barely finished bringing in their bags when Dad left with his truck to scope out the area, leaving Sam and Dean to unpack, buy food, and settle in. 

“We’ll stay until Christmas,” Dad had said. Sam knows better than to put stock in that by now, but if Dad bothered with renting a house then that means they’ll be around for at least a couple of weeks.

Dean drops down at the other end of the sofa, his back against the armrest, and puts his feet up. He prods the outside of Sam’s thigh with his socked toes just to be annoying. Sam’s starving and too grateful for the food to complain.

“You need a ride tomorrow morning?” he says around a mouthful of macaroni.

“Nah. I can just take the school bus. I asked Mrs Barcomb from across the street and she said it stops just two houses down, in front of that red brick house with all the ivy.”

Dean frowns, and Sam thinks he’ll object to her taking the bus, but what he says instead is, “Mrs _Barcomb_? When did you go ‘round talking to the neighbors?”

“She came by when you were out buying food. She just wanted to say hi.”

“And you just let her in, with no one else in the house? With all the arsenal still in the kitchen?”

“We just talked on the front porch, Dean, relax. Anyway she’s like 80 and she’s really sweet.”

“Doesn’t mean she can’t call the cops. And doesn’t mean she isn’t a witch, Sammy.”

“Yes, _Dad_.” Dean hates it when she calls him that, especially when she accompanies it with her best teenager eyeroll. His jaw clenches and he sits up straighter, taking his feet off of the couch and shifting to turn towards the television.

“You know what I’m saying. Don’t be such a brat.”

Sam’s stomach growls, and she shovels a spoonful of macaroni in her mouth. It really is amazing. It shouldn’t be, with the neon orange food coloring and the hot dogs that are made of god knows what (certainly not anything recognizable as meat) that do nothing to improve its nutritional value, but it doesn’t matter. She’d never tell Dean this, but if she was allowed one last meal before dying, she’d probably choose Dean’s mac and cheese over anything else.

“She brought a pie, too. I put it in the oven so it would stay warm.”

Dean glances at her from the corners of his eyes. “Did she?”

“Yeah. Blueberry.” 

Dean doesn’t say anything but the tension in his shoulder eases a bit. Sam smiles around her mouthful of food, twists around on the sofa and shoves her feet in Dean’s lap. “I told you she was sweet. She’s not a witch.”

“Shut up and eat,” Dean says, making a half-hearted attempt to push her feet off. “I’m testing the pie first, just to be sure.”

Sam laughs. “Sure.”

“And I’m driving you to school tomorrow. Screw the school bus.”

“Okay.”

*

Sam gets called _freak_ and _giraffe_ and _dyke_ and _yeti_ , all within the first week of school. She’s tall, and not just for her age. She’s nearly as tall as Dean, taller than all the boys at school, and no one ever lets her forget it. It’s been the same in every school ever since she shot up above everyone else when she was thirteen. She hunches her shoulders in her too-big hoodie (her favorite, stolen from Dean) and pretends not to notice when five-foot tall twerp boys try to trip her in the hallway. Dean would tell her to break some noses and make those boys eat dirt - no, actually, Dean would barge into the school and break some noses _himself_ if she told him what was going on, but either way, it wouldn’t make the name-calling stop. Sam knows that from experience.

Everywhere she goes people remark on her height. “You could model!” random strangers tell her in diners and gas stations, usually well-intentioned ladies old enough to be her mother, because they feel bad for exclaiming about her freakish height in the first place. When Sam looks in the mirror she doesn’t see a model, she just sees an awkward flat-chested girl with knobby knees and too-big hands. There’s strength in her limbs, the product of forced morning swims in cold motel pools and hours of hand-to-hand combat training, but what muscles she has only serve to make her look more boyish. Sam may be tall and skinny but she’s not _pretty_. She’s not cute. She hasn’t been cute since before she hit puberty, when she would wear her brother’s hand-me-downs and Dean would braid her hair with ribbons just so people would stop mistaking her for a little boy.

Sometimes Sam looks at old photos of her mom, so pretty and blonde and feminine, and she thinks that maybe she could have been more like that if she’d had a mother to show her how. If she’d had the chance at a normal life, maybe she’d know how to be a real girl, a girl like the ones that grab Dean’s attention, the ones he flirts with in diners and truck stops all across the country.

*

With Sam back in school and with them staying put for a while, they can’t live on pool hustling and credit card scams alone. Dean gets a part-time job pumping gas at the Mobil right off the I-87, a 3-in-1 gas station, convenience store and Dunkin’ Donuts that’s mainly populated by Canadians who are filling up their tanks with cheaper American gas before heading back north of the border.

The rest of his time he spends helping Dad out on the job. There’s been a string of disappearances around Lake Champlain, spread out over the past ten years. A water spirit, maybe, but it’s hard to say with so little to go on. It could be anything, a ghost or a creature roaming the woods nearby. Dad and Dean interview witnesses and Sam does research in between her homework, going through old obituaries and news stories. It’s tedious work but she doesn’t mind, prefers this to digging up graves or stitching up wounds.

The first weeks of school are brutal, but for once her home life is strangely ordinary. Calculus books and yellowed newspapers crowd together on the wobbly table that she's appropriated in the public library. The librarian is a tiny, round lady named Ruth who takes a shine to Sam and brings her homemade peanut butter cookies and tells Sam about her grandchildren. She asks Sam about her plans for college.

“I’ve applied all over the country,” Sam tells her conspiratorially. Her heart beats loud and guiltily; it’s the first time she’s told anyone. “But I can’t go anywhere without a full scholarship.”

Ruth smiles. “A smart girl like you, I bet all the schools will be fighting to have you. Just you wait.”

*

Sam’s new school has a girl’s volleyball team. They went to state last year, came in third, and they take their team very seriously. She knows this from when she looked up the school online when they first moved here but she’d forgotten about it until the coach (Mr. Carey, who doubles as her new math teacher) corners her in the library over lunch.

“Hey, Samantha. Mind if I sit down for a sec?”

She drops her half-eaten egg sandwich back into its crumpled paper bag and hopes she doesn’t have any crumbs or bits of egg stuck to her face. “I... sorry, I know I’m not supposed to bring food in here, but-”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about that. You know I coach the girl’s volleyball team, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, we lost our two best hitters when they graduated last year so I’m on a recruiting mission. You like volleyball?”

“I... I don’t know. I guess. I’ve never really played much.”

“No harm in trying, though, right? Tryouts for the team are Monday next week, after class, but there’s gonna be practice games all week over lunch break. You should come by.”

*

She feels stupid, standing there in her oversized Metallica t-shirt (Dean’s), her third-hand thrift-store shorts (Dean’s, from when he was around twelve years old), her scuffed sneakers (always hers, but they’re more brown than white now, from that time she ended up waist-deep in the mud with Dean, pushing Dad’s truck out of a river), and her yellowing knee pads (the school’s).

A couple of girls give her odd looks from the moment she walks into the gym, and she’s already thinking about turning around and walking right back out when a pretty redhead walks in from behind her and says, “Whoah, you’re tall!”, familiar words but in a tone Sam’s never heard before, impressed and appreciative. “Steph from last year was tall too, but not like you! She got a full ride to Texas State to play on their team.”

Her name is Melissa, and either she takes pity on Sam or she wants to see what Sam’s worth, because she immediately offers to pair up with her.

They barely have to touch volleyballs on the first day, for which Sam’s grateful -- running laps and doing push-ups, that she can do, and she finds herself holding back during the sprints because she doesn’t want to stand out too much. She’s barely winded at the end but Melissa’s still red-faced from the effort when they walk into the changing rooms.

“Coach Carey’s such a _jerk_ ,” she whines in an easy-going sort of way, and Sam likes her already. “He used to be in the reserves like twenty years ago so he thinks that means he can yell at us like a drill sergeant.”

“I don’t know, he doesn’t seem that bad.” Sam is used to worse. Just a day with John Winchester as a coach would make all of these girls have nervous breakdowns. Hell, Dad would probably give Coach Carey himself a nervous breakdown. 

Sam goes to practice all week. Melissa helps her a bit with her technique, and once she stops over-thinking it, it becomes pretty easy. She can catch a machete by the hilt in mid-air, she can strip a rifle and put it back together with her eyes closed, she can kick doors down and pick locks (faster than Dean, even) and set broken bones - passing a volleyball around doesn’t seem like such a big deal when she remembers that. _You’re a Winchester,_ Dean would say, _you can do anything_.

“You’ll make the team for sure,” Melissa says on Friday, pulling a clean t-shirt over her head in the changing room, and that’s when Sam realizes that she actually cares, that she _wants_ to make the team.

“You think?”

“Yeah. You’re a natural.” She grins at Sam, combing her messy curls into a loose ponytail. “Coach would be a moron not to pick you.”

When Sam sits down in her history class after lunch, one of the girls who’d given her strange looks at practice at the beginning of the week smiles at her from across the room. Sam smiles back, awkward and stilted. Maybe this school won’t be so bad after all.

*

Sam waits until the next Monday morning to talk to Dad about the team. He’s been up since the crack of dawn, packing his truck with weapons and supplies. He’ll be gone for a couple of days, and Sam knows from experience that moments like these are the best times to ask for a favor. Dad’s nearly always in a good mood when he’s about to hit the road with a monster in his sights, and she knows that he feels just enough guilt over leaving Dean and Sam alone yet again that he’s more likely to bend.

She sits on a kitchen chair with her knees pulled up and gulps down coffee while Dean stands behind her and brushes her hair, then ties it back in a neat braid that goes just past her shoulders like he does nearly every morning. He’d probably die of embarrassment if anyone saw him do this, but he’s done it since she was a kid, and whenever she tries to braid her hair herself she always makes a mess of it. She could learn to do it right, she thinks, if she really tried, but she likes this better, the gentle pull of Dean’s hands and the way he hums under his breath, the same way he does when he’s cleaning his gun or washing his car. When he’s finished, he rubs his thumb affectionately over the knob of her spine, then gives her braid a little tug.

“You ready to go, kiddo?”

“Yeah.” But she doesn’t move to get up yet, watching Dean as he moves away to put the coffee mugs and cereal bowls in the sink. She glances out the window, where Dad is loading heavy fuel cans into the back of his pick up. “Hey, Dean.”

“Hmm?”

“Would it be okay if you picked me up at 6 tonight, instead of right after school?”

Dean turns back to raise a questioning eyebrow, but it’s Dad’s voice asking, “Why?” over her shoulder that makes her jump. She didn’t even hear him come in.

“I have a thing after school.”

“A _thing_? Like what, like a date?” Dean this time, sounding equal parts concerned and amused, probably aware that even if it were true, she’d never admit to _that_ with Dad in the room. “Do I need to get my shotgun ready, Sammy?”

“No!”

“What, then?”

She’d meant to talk to them separately, get Dean on her side before she talked to Dad. She sighs. “Volleyball tryouts.”

“Say that again?”

“Volleyball tryouts. For the school team. I mean, I probably won’t even make it, those other girls have all been playing for years, but...” She trails off, then shrugs. “I thought I’d try, that’s all.”

Dad and Dean look at each other from across opposite ends of the room, having some kind of silent conversation as though she’s not even there. What they’re saying is clear enough, she doesn’t know why they can’t speak out loud like normal human beings instead of using shrugs and grimaces. They always do this, it’s infuriating.

_I’m not sure about this_ , Dad says with a frown.

_You know you’re in for another fight if you say no_ , Dean replies with an arched eyebrow and a half-shrug.

_Well, I suppose there’s no harm. At least sports is a more worthy pursuit for a hunter than the debate team she wanted to join last year._ (And okay, maybe that’s not _precisely_ what Dad’s saying with that sigh, but Sam is sure it’s not too far off the mark.) _You’ll keep an eye on her?_

_Of course, Dad._

“You know, there’s a reason our ancestors invented _spoken language_ ,” Sam says with an eyeroll, pushing herself to her feet and grabbing her school bag.

Dad just smiles, and it’s hard to stay annoyed when she’s pretty sure she’s going to get her way. Sam smiles back, tentatively.

“Alright, Sammy. But you know that doesn’t get you out of your physical training.”

“I know.”

“Okay. You show those girls what Winchesters are made of.”

Sam grins. “Yes, sir.”

*

Dean’s fiddling with the box of cassette tapes when Sam gets in the car. He knows them by heart now, can tell at a glance what’s on each tape, he doesn’t need to be squinting at the labels with this much concentration, but he’s careful not to look at her.

“So?” His attempt to sound casual is a total failure but she appreciates the effort.

“I made it. The team, I mean. I’m on the team.” She doesn’t know why she’s grinning so wide because it’s stupid, it’s just a high school volleyball team, but it doesn’t matter because Dean’s grinning too, that beautiful, crinkled-eyed proud smile that he saves just for her.

“‘Course you did, Sammy.”

Dean reaches out to tug her braid but she grabs his hand in mid-air before he can complete the gesture. She wants to press her lips to his knuckles, but she settles for holding his hand in her lap. Dean’s smile only flickers for half a second, but then he smirks, says, “Grabby little brat,” and doesn’t pull away, even though that means he has to drive one-handed all of the way back home.

He makes her mac and cheese for dinner, and that night he shoves enough money in her hands for her to buy new sneakers and her own knee pads.

“That’s your money, from the gas station,” Sam says, looking at all the crumpled bills in her hands. He’s been talking about new tires for the Impala for weeks.

Dean shrugs, uncomfortable, and turns his back on her. “It’s fine. You get dishes duty for the next _year_ , though.”

She can’t resist this time - she lunges at his back, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face against his shoulder blade. He stiffens only for a second.

“Thanks, Dean. I love you.”

“Yeah,” he says after a moment, clearing his throat. “You too, kiddo.”

*

Sam thinks that she’s been in love with Dean her entire life, or at least for as long as she can remember. She doesn’t know when she started _wanting_ him this way, when she began to crave something more than his hugs or his careless affectionate touches, or when she began to wonder what his lips would feel like against hers. But she knows that from the very first moment she began noticing boys at school, she was already comparing them to her big brother. Every time, they are weighed and found wanting. They’re not tall enough, too scrawny or too soft, whereas Dean is strong and confident and competent. They’re less infuriating than Dean, maybe, and less likely to laugh at their own dorky puns, but they’re also less funny, less clever, a million times less charming. They’re pimply and boring and dumb and predictable. It’s not fair that she should be expected to be interested in those boys, not when Dean eclipses them all without even trying.

And Dean _loves_ her. And yeah, he loves her like a little sister, but his love is absolute and unconditional and so fierce that it frightens her sometimes because even in her half-assed fantasies of wedding dresses and church aisles, the handsome strangers she dreams up never look at her with even half of the warmth she finds in Dean’s gaze. Sam’s always known that there’s nothing Dean wouldn’t do for her, and how can anyone else even _begin_ to compete with that?

*

Sam likes volleyball. Her height gives her an obvious advantage over most girls, and she’s good at it. She was trained from a young age to have good reflexes and she’s strong. Not as strong as Dad or Dean (that’ll never happen, not a chance, no matter how many sets of push-ups Dad makes her do every morning) but strong enough to smash the ball hard in the middle of the opposing team’s court, a missile that makes the other girls scramble like headless chickens to catch it. There’s satisfaction in finding something that she’s good at so effortlessly, without having to work at it, without her dad looming over her shoulder always pushing her to be better.

But above all that, she likes the camaraderie. She’s never been good at making friends with girls her own age, she doesn’t know how to speak to them. She’s fluent in Latin, knows some Spanish, can decipher all the nuances of Winchester Men body language, but Teenage Girl is like a code that she’s never managed to break. But her teammates welcome her in immediately, and it’s like being accepted into a secret society. All of a sudden she has a table of friends to sit with at lunch, people who greet her by name when she walks into a room. She does her math homework with Julia Finley, lets Helen Mason talk to her about her boy troubles for hours and hours, and gets kicked out of English with Melissa for making her laugh so hard she gets the hiccups. Melissa’s her favorite, with her green eyes and her freckles and her loud, boisterous laugh. She and Dean would get along great, she thinks, but she has no intention of introducing them, glad to have them both for herself.

Dean picks her up after practice and comes along to each away game, the Impala trailing the team’s minivan like a shadow. He sits in the bleachers, and it wouldn’t be so bad if he’d keep quiet and try to blend in with the crowd, but instead he insists on behaving like the world’s worst soccer mom, shouting advice, heckling the opposing team, and trying to start arguments with the referee. Sam would find it embarrassing if most of her teammates weren’t in love with him. 

“Is that your boyfriend?” Helen Mason asks her in an awed undertone, on the very first day she sees him.

“No.” She should be used to that question by now. She and Dean don’t look much alike and she knows it’s an easy conclusion to jump to out of context when you see them together, when you see how close they are. It doesn’t have to mean anything. She knows that, yet it always makes her tense up, the idea that maybe strangers are seeing these things about her that shouldn’t be out there in plain sight. “He’s my brother.”

“Damn, girl. Your brother is _hot_ ,” Helen says, sing-songing the last word, and Sam smiles ruefully.

“Keep it down. He already thinks he’s hot stuff, he doesn’t need to keep hearing it.”

Helen’s the first to say it, but she isn’t the only one. _What’s his name? How old is he? Does he have a girlfriend? Do you live with him? Can I come over to your place after school? Will he be there?_

Sam would rather die than have friends over, not when there’s the chance they could stumble upon sawed-off shotguns or curse boxes or machetes (plus there’s the fact that Dad would kill her if he walked in to find a stranger in the house, whether or not said stranger was an inoffensive teenage girl), so Sam finds excuses. It doesn’t deter any of them, not when Dean’s always there after each practice, unfairly gorgeous and so goddamn _cool_ , leaning against the driver’s side of his shiny classic car and rewarding their stares with flirty smiles. Sam can’t even blame the girls for trying.

By the third game he’s attended, Dean’s already compiled a list of the order in which he’d do her teammates. Sam’s pretty sure he’s just doing it to piss her off. Dean’s 21, old enough to use his real ID in bars, and he can pick up whomever he wants (and does, as much as he tries to be discreet about it when Sam’s around). It’s not like he needs to be leering at a bunch of high schoolers, even if he clearly enjoys their attention. He makes up dumb names for them, like _Tall Blonde_ and _Short Blonde_ and _Braces_ and _The Hot Redhead_ and _Poor Man’s Winona Ryder_.

“Her name is Julia, not Poor Man’s Winona Ryder. And you’re gross. They’re _minors_ , Dean.”

“Not for long,” he says with a waggle of eyebrows, so she punches him in the arm.

*

Dad comes and goes from the house at unpredictable hours, his moods as fluctuating as the weather. Weeks of digging yield few leads on the Lake Champlain case, so in the meantime he takes care of a black dog in Vermont, then takes off again to hunt a witch in Jefferson County. He takes Dean along for that one, leaving Sam home alone for an entire week. She doesn’t mind because she knows how bored Dean’s been, pumping gas and babysitting his little sister. Dad doesn’t ask Sam if she wants to come along, and she’s grateful for that, too.

When neither Dad or Dean are around, Sam can pretend that she’s just another normal teenage girl. She splits her evenings between volleyball practice and her homework. She skips her morning workouts just because she can and revels in the extra hour of sleep, wears her hair in messy ponytails while Dean’s not there to braid it for her. She lives on peanut butter and banana sandwiches and spends a lot of her free time on the phone with Melissa because there’s no one around to berate her for it. 

“You wanna come sleep over? My mom won’t mind.”

“I dunno.” Sam thinks of the shitstorm that would ensue if Dad and Dean came home and found the house empty in the middle of the night. They’d probably kick down every door in the town looking for her. “Might not be a good idea, my dad’s pretty strict.”

“Come watch a movie, then? I can drive you back home before you turn into a pumpkin.”

Melissa’s house is tastefully decorated and welcoming and smells like freshly baked cookies, and her mom is really nice. They watch _American Beauty_ in Melissa’s bed with Sully, the family’s cocker spaniel, sprawled out between them. Melissa’s mom brings them popcorn and orange soda, and by the time the movie’s over, Sully has migrated to Sam’s lap and Melissa has pulled Sam’s feet over her knees so she can paint her toenails purple, the same shade as her own. Dean always gives her foot massages when they watch movies on the couch together, even though he grouches about it, and Sam smiles at the thought of it. She wonders what he’s up to, and what stories he’ll have to tell when he comes back.

When Melissa’s mom finds out that she’s home alone for a couple of days, she invites Sam herself. “You sure you don’t want to spend the night? If your dad’s not home, it can be our little secret.”

Sam thinks of the empty house that awaits her, of how drafty her room in the attic has become now that the weather’s starting to turn cold. Here there’s a soft, friendly dog and a doting mother to feed her, a friend to talk with through the night, a bedroom full of teddy bears and sports trophies and Radiohead posters on the wall, and maybe even pancakes in the morning.

“No, I’d better go home. But thanks.”

Sam goes home, but not before Melissa’s mom gives her a grocery bag loaded with food - a fresh loaf of bread, half a dozen muffins, and half a lasagna - and just smiles kindly at Sam when she politely tries to refuse. There’s something like pity in the look she gives her, and in the way she insists that Sam is welcome to dinner whenever she wants. Like Sam is some street urchin that could use the charity. Sam smiles back, tight-lipped and only a little bitter. It’s nothing she isn’t used to, and besides, that lasagna was really good.

*

Sam wakes up shivering at two in the morning, with the rain and the autumn wind beating against the old walls of the house, the room cold enough to fog her breath. She gets up to check the salt lines at the windowsills and the doorways, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a cape. She makes herself a cup of lemon tea to warm up and drinks it alone on the sofa, listening to the whistle of the wind coming down the chimney.

She tiptoes into Dean’s room, quiet even though there’s no one to wake up. She steps over the piles of clothes strewn about the small room and crawls into Dean’s creaky double bed, burying her nose in the pillow that still smells like him. She falls asleep almost instantly.

*

“What you doin’ there, Sammy?”

Dean’s voice, heavy with exhaustion, coming from somewhere above her head. It takes her a moment to make sense of the question, to remember where she is.

“S’cold in my room.” She rolls over without opening her eyes, shifting closer to the wall to leave room for him. Dean grunts something unintelligible, probably too tired to protest. A few moments later there’s the sound of clothes being shucked and boots hitting the floor, then the bed dips with Dean’s weight, and she’s asleep again.

She wakes up some time later with her nose pressed in Dean’s t-shirt, just below his armpit. He smells like sweat and gunpowder and, inexplicably, like something sweet and cloying, a smell like rotting flowers. _Witches_ , she remembers sleepily, _Dean hates them_. Dean’s snoring lightly and his hand is tangled in her hair. It’s nice. Dean is so warm, radiating heat like a furnace, all sleep heavy and familiar. Sam shifts closer, her palm open over Dean’s heart, pounding steady and comforting.

When she wakes up again it’s morning, the bed is empty, and she can hear the shower running. Dean’s in there, probably, washing off yesterday’s dust and sweat and whatever it was that left him smelling vaguely like dead roses. Maybe he’s jerking off in there. Helen said that guys jerk off like five times a day. Sam rolls into Dean’s side of the bed, still warm from his body, and pulls the blanket over her head like a cocoon. 

She thinks of his big, clever hands, what they would look like wrapped around his own dick as he jerked off and it makes her face heat up, her thighs squeezing together at the warmth pooling low in her belly. She slides her hand down her stomach, her fingers slipping just under the waistband of her panties and into her coarse, wiry hair, just resting there. She wonders if Dean would be able to tell if she got herself off in his bed, whether he’d be able to smell her on the sheets when he went to sleep. Sam bites her lip, her hand sliding lower, pressing down. She turns her face into Dean’s pillow, inhaling deeply.

That’s when Dad’s voice calls her name from the kitchen. Sam flushes all over, hot with shame, scrambling out of bed so fast she nearly trips over her own feet.

She comes out of Dean’s room with her blanket wrapped around her like armor, red-faced, angry at herself and already spoiling for a fight. Dad’s got a fresh wound all along the length of his forearm, and the sight of all that blood seeping through the bandage incenses her instantly, like a flame to dry kindling.

“What happened to you?” Sam demands at exactly the moment that Dad says, “Why the hell are your toenails purple?” and somehow that degenerates into a venomous screaming match that ends when Dad storms out into the back yard and slams the door behind him.

“So nice to be back home,” Dean says wryly from the bathroom doorway, his hair still wet from his shower, and Sam rushes up the stairs to her room before she bursts out crying or punches him in his stupid, too-pretty face.

*

Sam walks up to the Impala after practice, still clutching a bright orange flyer advertising the school’s Halloween party. She’d meant to toss it in the trash right after it was handed to her, but she gets distracted by Melissa yelling at her from across the parking lot.

“You’re a giant nerd, Winchester!”

“Yeah, and you owe me five bucks!”

Melissa flips her the finger while no teacher is around to see and Sam laughs and returns the gesture. She’s still grinning when she opens the car door and slips into the passenger seat.

“What’s that about?” Dean asks with a half-smile, turning the key in the ignition.

“She didn’t believe me when I said I can speak Latin.”

Dean snorts. “Well, you can do a lot of things that she wouldn’t believe. Latin’s the least of it.”

Sam knows he means it as a compliment, but she thinks of what Melissa or the others would say if they knew about what her family does and her mood drops abruptly.

“Yeah.” She turns the music up and Dean puts the car into drive. She glances down at her lap and remembers the flyer in her hand, unfolding it to look at the stupid horror movie font and the grinning jack-‘o-lantern. She has no intention of going; Halloween’s the dumbest holiday ever, worse even than Valentine’s Day, and she stopped finding fake ghosts and cardboard tombstones funny ever since the first time she had to dig up a grave in the middle of the night.

“Are you gonna go?”

“No way. Halloween is so stupid.”

“So what? It’s just an excuse for a party.”

“I’d have to get a costume, fuck that.”

“Language, Sam,” Dean says automatically, even though she learned all her swear words from him and they both know it. He smiles. “I’ll get a sheet from the house, we can cut out two holes for your eyes.”

“Hah, very funny,” she says, rolling her eyes, and Dean only grins wider. “I can’t believe you’d even let me go.”

“Yeah, well.” He looks away from her and turns his eyes back on the road, his smile fading. “I’d drop you off and pick you up. No biggie. Plus it’s at school, right? There’ll be teachers there, not like you can get into that much trouble.”

“Dad still wouldn’t let me.”

Sam thinks she could cope with Dad being overprotective if he did it the way normal dads do, but the rifle he keeps by the door is loaded with silver bullets, and it isn’t for warding off boys. She’s pretty sure that he isn’t worried about Sam getting drunk or doing drugs or having sex and winding up pregnant (sometimes she thinks that calling his daughter Sam all these years has made her dad forget that she’s not actually a boy). That stuff probably doesn’t even cross his mind. He’s too busy worrying about supernatural threats to even think about the normal everyday stuff that keeps other fathers awake at night. Dad’s only worried that she’ll get killed by a poltergeist or possessed by a demon or die in some horrific way if she doesn’t have him or Dean watching out for her.

“He might,” Dean says, even though they both know the truth of Sam’s statement. “Anyway, he’s not here. And you’re always bitching that you never get to go anywhere, so why am I having to convince you? I just thought you’d like to hang out with your friends or whatever.”

Dean looks annoyed now, and she knows he’s _trying_ , for her sake. The truth is that she’d rather spend Halloween with him, sitting on the couch and watching a stupid horror movie. Dean would rub her feet and after the movie she could pretend to be asleep just so he’d carry her to bed, like he did when she was little.

“Yeah. I guess. Maybe I could go,” Sam says after a moment and slips the flyer into her back pocket.

*

In the end it doesn’t matter because Sam never makes it to the party.

Dad comes rushing in like a gust of wind the day before and he’s back out again almost immediately, this time with Dean in tow. He’s picked up a lead about the Lake Champlain case after all these weeks of dead ends. It’s a vengeful spirit, something about a drowning a long time ago, but Dad’s in too much of a hurry to share any more details.

“I know where the bastard is, it won’t take long,” Dad says, kissing her on the forehead. “We’ll be back tomorrow.”

“You could at least stay for dinner,” Sam says, unable to keep the petulant tone from her voice. “We haven’t seen you in two weeks.”

“We’ll grab something on the way, it’s fine,” Dad says, completely missing her point. Nothing new there. “Come on, Dean,” he shouts over his shoulder and then he’s out the door again.

Dean’s got his duffel bag slung over his shoulder and that glint in his eyes, barely holding back his excitement. “I’ll call you on the road, okay?”

“I thought you had to work at the gas station tonight.”

“I called in sick.” Maybe he’s misinterpreting Sam’s frustration for jealousy, because he lowers his voice and adds, “You know Dad would let you come too if you asked him.”

“I don’t want to. I have school tomorrow, Dean.”

“Right. Right. Can’t miss that all-important calculus lesson, who knows _what_ might happen.”

“I said I don’t wanna go, okay? Leave me alone!”

“Sammy...”

“Just go!” she shouts, and Dean hesitates by the door for a moment, looking unhappy, until Dad honks the horn.

After the night when Dean came home to find Sam sleeping in his bed, Dean got an extra pile of blankets from god knows where and replaced the caulking around her window to get rid of the draft. It’s much warmer up there now so she doesn’t really have any excuse to sneak into his bed this time, but she does it anyway, just because she can. The house doesn’t feel so empty when she’s surrounded by his things, by his smell.

Dean calls the next afternoon, right after she gets home from school. “We got the sucker, Sammy. I lit him up myself.”

“You okay? Is Dad with you?”

“He’s fine. He’s staying behind for another day to clean up, but I’ll be back home tonight. Might be a bit too late to drive you to your party, though.”

“It’s okay. I can get one of my friends to come pick me up.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. But I’ll be there to pick you up from school at midnight, okay? Have fun, Sammy.” He hangs up before she gets the chance to argue.

Ten minutes later the phone rings again. It’s Julia. “You’re gonna come, right? You have to, all of the team will be there.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Sam says. “Do I really have to put on this costume, though?”

“Of course you do, dummy, that’s the whole point! It’s only funny if we’re _all_ wearing it.”

_It’s not_ that _funny_ , Sam thinks. 

She eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in front of the TV even though she’s not really hungry, then gets changed into her costume. She pulls on the stupid little skirt that barely covers her ass, but the worst part is the too-short top that leaves a strip of her belly exposed. She’s about to tie her hair back into two pigtails according to Julia’s instructions when she catches sight of herself in the mirror. She sighs and drops her hairbrush in the sink with a clatter. “No way. Fuck this.”

She walks back into the living room and picks up the phone.

“Hey Melissa? I’m not gonna go to the party after all. Tell the other girls I’m sorry, okay?”

“What? No way, why not?”

“I dunno, I’m not really feeling well, and my brother’s coming back h-... Oh shit, I gotta go, okay? I’ll see you Monday.”

There’s Dean, standing in the doorway. 

The entire left sleeve of his shirt is missing, ripped off at the shoulder seam, and his whole upper arm is wrapped in bandages. He’s got a shallow-looking cut over the bridge of his nose and the skin around his left eye is puffy and swollen. She stares at him, caught somewhere between anger and worry and relief.

“Goddamnit, Dean, why didn’t you say anything on the phone?”

He gives her a long look before he finally drops his duffel on the floor and closes the door behind him. “Hey Sammy. Nice outfit.”

She blushes. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s fine. I told you, he stayed behind.”

“And he let you drive back here like _this_? You could have passed out at the wheel!” She finally remembers how to walk and rushes over to him, drags him over to the couch by his good arm and pushes him down. She leans down to grab the butterfly knife that Dean always keeps in his boot and uses it to cut off what’s left of his ruined Henley to check his wounds.

Dean lets her do it. There a tightness around his eyes that means he’s in pain but his lips are quirked in a half-smile. “I’m fine, Florence Nightingale.”

“I’m not your nurse.”

“No, you’re not. You’re a cheerleader, apparently.”

“Shut up.” Then, hating that she feels the need to justify herself, she says, “We all got matching costumes. The other girls on the team thought it would be funny.”

“Right.” He gives her another once over, hissing when Sam unwraps the bandages around his arm. He grabs the hem of her skirt, rubbing the cheap fabric between thumb and forefinger. “You were really gonna go out dressed like that?”

Sam doesn’t answer, ignores the hot rush of blood to her face. That wound dressing was clearly done in a hurry and Dean needs stitches. She gets the first aid kit from the bathroom and a bottle of Jack from the kitchen and gets to work.

“I bet it was that little redhead’s idea,” Dean continues after a couple of minutes and it takes Sam a second to remember what he’s talking about. Her fingers are hot and tacky with her brother’s blood and she wishes she wasn’t so used to that sensation. Dean takes a long swallow straight from the bottle. “What’s her name again, Melissa? She’s a troublemaker, I can tell.” He sounds half-disapproving and half-admiring. Melissa’s really pretty, and she’s got the biggest breasts of the whole team. The order of Dean’s stupid bang list ( _Sam’s Teammates, Ranked by Order of Hotness_ ) changes every other week, but Melissa is always right at the top.

Sam squares her jaw. “Forget it, okay? It doesn’t matter, I’m obviously not going to the stupid party.”

Dean sucks in a sharp breath when the needle first pierces his skin. He doesn’t say anything while she stitches him up, just watches her with his teeth clenched, trusting that she knows what she’s doing. God knows that she’s had enough experience patching them up, both him and their dad.

When she’s finished there are blood stains all over her cheerleader outfit. She wipes her hands on her skirt because it’s ruined now anyway.

“I’m sorry you missed the party,” Dean says.

Sam sits down next to him and he passes her the bottle of Jack. She takes a little sip, grimacing as it burns down her throat, then passes it back. “It’s alright. I didn’t really want to go.”

“It’s just as well anyway,” Dean says, leaning back against the couch and looking at her from the corner of his eye. “I would’ve had to beat the boys off with sticks if they saw you looking like that.” He looks embarrassed from the moment he’s said it, looks away from her and takes another long swig from the bottle.

Sam flushes, smoothing her hands down her bloody skirt, but looks back up when Dean laughs a little.

“Although I gotta say you look a bit like a demented cheerleader from a slasher flick,” he says, gesturing at the blood stains, and Sam can’t help but smile.

“I feel stupid. I’m gonna go change and clean up.”

By the times she comes back down the stairs in her favorite hoodie and her too-short sweatpants, she feels a bit more like herself. 

She stops by the fridge to take a couple of sodas and grabs one of Dean’s flannel shirts from the clean laundry basket that’s sitting on top of the kitchen table, the green one that’s all faded and soft to the touch. 

Dean’s still where she left him but he’s turned on the television. _Dawn of the Dead_ is playing, the old Romero one. Sam stops in front of him and hands him the clean shirt. “You’ve watched this like a hundred times already.”

“Then I guess I’m gonna make it a hundred and one.”

Sam stands between Dean’s knees and helps him into his shirt. Dean’s mouth tightens with pain as he gingerly slides his injured arm through the sleeve. She does up the buttons for him and Dean lets her, his arms limp at his sides. Even tired and pale from blood loss, bruised and battered, three days of stubble on his jaw and dark circles under his eyes, he’s still the most beautiful person Sam has ever seen. She bites her lower lip, raises her hand to trace her thumb along his eyebrow, ignores the surprised look in his eyes when his gaze flicks up to her face. She really wants to kiss him. She wants to climb into his lap and kiss him until they’re both dizzy, until the lines of tension and pain in his face melt away. She wants it so much it aches, a weight against her chest that makes it difficult to breathe.

“You gonna be alright?” she says, just to fill the silence that has already stretched on too long.

There’s something his eyes then, something in the way he looks up at her, but she doesn’t know what it is, or what she’s supposed to do with it. His hand lands on her hip, warm even through her sweatpants. “Yeah, Sammy,” he says, his voice rough. “‘Course. It’s just a scratch.”

“Okay. Good.” 

Dean looks at her for another long moment, then lets out a huffing sort of laugh and looks away, his hand dropping back to his lap. “You wanna watch this or what?”

Sam back away too fast and almost stumbles backwards over the coffee table. Dean reaches a hand out to steady her and he laughs, but not unkindly. “Easy,” he says, the warmth in his voice making her face heat up. 

“Shut up,” she says, plopping herself down at the other end of the couch. She feels awkward and stupid until Dean pulls her feet into his lap.

“I freaking love this movie,” Dean says. Sam rolls her eyes because it’s what’s expected of her and Dean grins, childish and stupid and gorgeous.

Sam’s almost asleep by the time the movie ends. Dean tickles the sole of her foot, then catches her ankle when she almost kicks him out of reflex. As tall as she’s gotten, his hand can still close all the way around her ankle easily. She looks up from her foot to his face and finds him staring at her, looking sleepy and a bit sad.

“I know you like it here, Sammy. But I wouldn’t get too attached to all these people, your friends. Cause you know we’ll be leaving soon, especially now the case is finished.”

“Dad said we’d stay until Christmas,” she says but without much conviction.

*

“What happened to him?” Julia asks her in a low voice the next Monday when they walk out of the school after practice to find Dean waiting in the parking lot, as usual. He’s leaning against the side of the Impala and Sam can tell by his posture that his arm is still hurting. The worst of his injuries are hidden under his jacket but the butterfly bandages over the bridge of his nose and the green and purple bruises around his eye are harder to conceal.

“He got in a bar fight.” Sam doesn’t say _because he’s a moron_ , but she’s pretty sure her tone makes that clear enough.

“Wow,” Julia breathes, sounding so fucking impressed, and it makes Sam want to punch her. _Don’t bother,_ she almost says, _you’re way at the bottom of his list anyway._

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean says when she reaches the car, cheerful and affectionate. He’s in a good mood despite his injuries, still riding the high of a successful hunt, and his smile tugs at her heart in all the wrong ways.

“You look awful,” she says, just to knock that smile off his face. It doesn’t work.

*

Sam’s short volleyball career comes to an abrupt stop on a Friday in November.

They’re in the middle of a home game, leading two sets to one, ten points ahead in the fourth set. Helen gives her a bump set and Sam leaps up, slamming the ball in a nice cross-court shot that has her whole team slapping her back in congratulations. She can hear Dean’s voice cheering in the crowd and it makes her grin as she wipes the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand.

It’s one of those awesome games where everything seems to go perfectly, victory all but assured - up until the moment that Sam jumps up at the net to block the ball at exactly the moment that Helen does the same thing. Helen somehow loses her balance, her shoes squealing loudly on the waxed floor. She makes a desperate lunge, arms windmilling wildly, and her hands close on Sam’s t-shirt in an attempt to stay upright. She only succeeds in pulling them both to the floor - Helen lands on her ass with a grunt but Sam nearly faceplants over her, putting her arm out just in time to avoid crashing nose first on the gym floor. The pain in her hand is sharp and immediate, snaking up her arm like electricity and dragging a shocked yelp out of her. The whistle blows and the game grinds to a halt.

“I broke something,” Sam says from the floor, twisting onto her back and cradling her hand as a small crowd gathers around her, a wall of concerned sweaty faces and skinny legs in knee pads. 

She can hear Coach Carey shouting, “What happened?” and Melissa saying, “Are you hurt, Sam?” but Dean is there first, pushing his way through the girls to help her to her feet, his arm gentle but firm around her shoulder.

“You alright, Sammy?” His jaw is clenched tight and he’s looking her over as soon as she’s up, scanning for other injuries, “Just your hand? Lemme see it.”

“I broke something,” Sam repeats in a small voice, lets Dean turn her left hand delicately around in his. “I’m sure of it, I remember what it feels like. Just my pinky, I think.”

“Hey, girls, back off a sec,” the coach says, herding the crowd off the court before stepping close to where Dean and Sam are standing. “Samantha? Let me have a look at that hand.”

“I got it,” Dean says immediately, before Sam can even think of moving. “Come on, Sam. Let’s get you out of here.”

Coach Carey frowns, taken aback for a second. He recovers quickly, his voice taking on an authoritative tone. “Look, I’m responsible for these girls, and-”

“Well you ain’t responsible for _Sam_ ,” Dean snaps, his voice rising abruptly. “So back off, buddy.” 

Behind them, one of the girls gasps. Sam puts her good hand on Dean’s arm and steps between the two of them, acutely aware of all the eyes in the room staring at them. Her hand is throbbing and this is mortifying enough without her brother getting into a fistfight with her coach. She just wants to leave.

“It’s okay, Coach, Dean’s a paramedic,” Sam says. It’s not true but it might as well be, certifications or not, and it’s enough to make Coach Carey back off, after making her promise to call him on his cell phone after she’s been to the hospital. Dean shoots him a dirty look, jaw ticking, scowls at the entire group of girls as though they’re all to blame, and follows Sam out of the gym.

Dean keeps a hand on the small of her back the whole way to the car, as though a stupid broken finger is some huge deal, like he’s afraid she’ll trip and fall again. She’s been through worse, a lot worse, and so has Dean, and so has their dad, a hundred times over. It doesn’t even hurt that much. _This is nothing_ , she thinks helplessly, feeling her eyes flood with tears, making the whole parking lot blurry.

“That chick’s a moron,” Dean is saying, his voice tight, still angry. “I saw what happened. She fucking pulled you down with her.”

“It’s not her fault,” Sam says, amazed at how calm she sounds. She blinks and it sets the tears free, sliding in fat tracks down her cheeks. “It was just a dumb accident, it happens.” 

“It doesn’t happen when little brats watch what they’re doing. She didn’t even need to be there anyway, the center court’s always yours.” He releases his hold on her long enough to pop open the Impala’s trunk and grab a roll of bandages, then turns back to Sam, who’s leaning on the passenger door and holding her own hand up by the wrist. “I’m gonna strap your pinky with your ring finger--” he begins, but stops when his eyes flick up to her face and he realizes that she’s crying. He blinks a couple of times, looking guileless, confused, and worried. “Hey, Sammy. It doesn’t hurt that much, does it?”

“No,” Sam says, wiping ineffectually at her eyes with her right hand. “Forget it. Here,” she says, extending her injured hand out to Dean. He steps closer and takes her wrist in his hand but just stares at her. Sam looks down, shrugs. Disappointment twists her insides, more painful than her broken finger. “I won’t get to play again. It’s over.” She shakes her head and tries to smile but her mouth won’t move the way she wants it to. Her eyes prickle, sending a fresh wave of tears running down her face.

“Sammy,” Dean says, sounding a little desperate. “A little break like that, that’s about a month with a splint, tops. That’s not so bad, hey?” He’s never been able to handle her tears, not when she was a kid and not now. She tries not to do it anymore, holds it back for when he’s not around because he always looks at her like this when she cries, wide-eyed and helpless and like it’s causing him physical pain. “You can play again in no time.”

“We’ll be gone by then, you know that. I shouldn’t even be on the team in the first place, Dean. I shouldn’t... I shouldn’t even have tried out. I knew we wouldn’t be here the whole year and I won’t go to state with them, so what’s the point?”

Dean reaches out to wipe one of her tears with his thumb. “The point is that you like it, Sammy,” he says softly. “You should get to do things you like.”

That only makes her cry more, and Dean looks so distraught that it makes her want to kiss him, right here and now in the middle of the parking lot. He pulls her into a hug, careful of her hand, and she tucks her nose in the crook of his neck.

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” he says, his lips in her hair.

“I know.” She sniffs. “It’s okay, though. It’s just a dumb volleyball team.” She doesn’t think he’s fooled by that because he keeps on holding her for a long time.

*

Melissa comes by the house the next day, bearing a giant handmade ‘Get Well Soon’ card, signed by the whole team. She says, “I hear hand splints are super fashionable in Paris right now,” and Sam laughs and hugs her.

Sam props the card by the door and grabs her jacket from the coat rack, steps out on the porch and shuts the door behind her.

“D’you mind if we talk in your car? It’s just... I’d invite you in, but my dad’s sleeping, he got home in the middle of the night.” That’s true, but there’s also Dean in the kitchen making dinner and Sam’s not allowed to bring any of her friends home anyway.

They sit in the black Jetta (Melissa’s sweet sixteen birthday gift), parked on the side of the road in front of the house, and Melissa turns the key just enough to put the radio on. The opening chords of _Karma Police_ pour out of the speakers and Sam smiles a bit because Dean really hates that song.

“I’m sorry about your hand. And Helen feels terrible, she thinks you’re mad at her.”

“I’m not mad. It was just an accident.”

“Yeah, but it blows, man. It’s gonna suck having to replace you until you can play again.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, her throat tight. She should tell Melissa that she’ll be moving away soon, that they should find a permanent replacement, but that’s the last conversation she feels like having right now. 

“I mean... I don’t mean just for the team, you know. _I’m_ gonna miss having you at games and practice and stuff. How long did the doctor say?”

There had been no doctor, just Dean and then Dad, who confirmed the break with an angry twist to his mouth, his voice condemning and his eyes severe.

“I don’t know. Three or four w-”

She doesn’t get to finish her sentence because that’s when Melissa leans forward, puts her hand on Sam’s shoulder, and kisses her. Sam’s so surprised that she doesn’t do anything, just freezes and lets it happen. Melissa’s lips are warm against her mouth and she pulls back abruptly after only a couple of seconds.

“I... oh god. I’m sorry,” Melissa says, blushing nearly as red as her freckles. “It’s just... I’ve wanted to do that for a long time. Like, since that first day. I like you, I have since you first showed up at school. And I’m gay.” She gets it all out in a rush, clearly mortified. “I hope you don’t... God, I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me.”

_I’m in love with my brother,_ Sam’s brain unhelpfully supplies. _That’s way worse_. A bubble of hysterical laughter threatens to come up her throat but she doesn’t want Melissa to think she’s laughing at her so she bites it back and looks down. She grabs Melissa’s hand and squeezes it. “It’s okay,” she says. “You just surprised me.”

Sam doesn’t really mean it as an invitation for Melissa to kiss her again, but she kisses her back anyway when it happens, just to see what it’s like. Melissa is sweet and funny and smart, and even if she’s not the person Sam really wants to be kissing, she could do a lot worse for a first kiss.

It’s not at all like she imagines kissing Dean would be like. Melissa’s hand on her cheek is small and delicate, her lips taste artificially sweet because of her strawberry lip gloss and her hair brushes softly against Sam’s cheekbones. It’s not crazy and passionate and full of tongue like in the movies, but it’s nice, and Melissa sighs and smiles against her lips when Sam brushes a curl of red hair behind her ear.

When Sam pulls back, they’re both blushing furiously and Sam’s lips are tingling. “I... I should go,” Sam says, but she smiles when she says it, and Melissa grins back, looking pleased.

“Yeah, okay. I have to get back home anyway. Can we hang out tomorrow?”

“I don’t know, I might have to do family stuff,” Sam lies, remembering Dean’s words to her on Halloween. _Don’t get too attached, Sammy._ “But I’ll call you later, okay?”

When Sam climbs out of the car she thinks she sees the curtain move inside the house from the corner of her vision, but when she turns to look there’s no one there. She takes off her jacket and hooks it back up on the coat rack, then walks into the kitchen where Dean’s at the stove with his back to her, flipping burger patties.

“No wonder you liked volleyball so much,” he says without turning around. 

Sam feels herself go scarlet. Without a word, she turns right back around, climbs up the stairs, and locks herself in her room.

*

Dean’s weird after that, even though she can tell he tries not to be. She keeps catching him looking at her strangely and conversations seem forced in a way they’ve never been before, even the times they’ve been fighting.

Maybe he’s just having one of those, “Oh god my baby sister is growing up” moments, but even his freakout when she got her first period wasn’t like this. She wonders whether he’d be acting the same way if he’d caught her kissing a boy.

Sam doesn’t know how to make it better. She can’t say, “I don’t really like girls,” because she’s not sure whether or not that’s true yet. And she can’t exactly say, “I’d rather be kissing you anyway,” either. So she doesn’t say anything and neither does Dean.

Meanwhile, Sam makes up excuses not to see Melissa outside of school, saying stuff like, “I have to study,” and “I have to go visit my grandparents,” and feels guilty as hell. After a few times, Melissa stops asking, and Sam can’t pretend that the hurt in her green eyes isn’t painful. _It’s better this way,_ Sam wants to tell her. _You don’t want to date me. I’m a freak and my family is nuts._

It’s a full week later when Dean finally says something. They’re watching _The Fifth Element_ on TV, and Milla Jovovich is on screen when he turns to Sam and says, “Man, that chick’s hot. What do you think, Sammy? You like redheads, don’t you?”

Sam laughs. She can’t help it. She hides her face in her hands and groans, “God, Dean, shut up.”

He smirks and turns back to the television, and after that it’s not so awkward anymore.

*

Two days before Thanksgiving, Dad shows up in the middle of the night and tells them to pack up. It’s four in the morning and Dean’s already dressed and shoving clothes into duffels like the good dutiful son he is, but Sam’s still in her nightshirt (one of Dean’s old flannels, soft and faded and more comfortable than any pajama), standing in the middle of the cold kitchen in her thick woollen socks and shouting at her father.

“You said we’d stay until Christmas! You _said_!” She hates that she’s so frustrated because she knew this would happen, knows that she’s been on borrowed time ever since they got rid of the Lake Champlain spirit on Halloween. She knew it was coming, but it doesn’t make her disappointment any less bitter.

“I know I said that, Sam, but...”

“Well, you lied!” she yells. “You always lie!”

Dad’s jaw clenches, his eyes harden. “Is this about the volleyball team? You can’t play with your injury anyway, so what does it matter? And if I’d known you’d get hurt I wouldn’t have let you play in the first place.”

Just like that her frustration shifts to blind rage, so thick she almost chokes with it. “Go to Hell!” Sam shouts, and storms out the door before she can think better of it, out in the cold November night without any shoes, in a flannel shirt that only just covers her ass. The door slams satisfyingly loud behind her, breaking the night’s silence like a gunshot.

She can hear him shouting her name so she takes off at a run, socked feet silent on the pavement, not caring where she’s going, just needing to put some distance between her and her dad. She makes it to the end of the street before the cold catches up to her, spearing through her and making her chest seize up. She slows down to a jog and then to a walk, hugging her arms around herself, her whole body breaking out in violent shivers. Her flare of anger fades down to a simmer, tinged with embarrassment. She hopes they didn’t wake up the neighbors with their theatrics and that no one’s watching her walk down the street, half-naked and shoeless, like a complete fool. The night is quiet and overcast, the street empty, with just the sound of wind through the bare branches and the chatter of her teeth to break the silence.

She’s standing at the end of the street by the intersection, weighing her options, when the familiar rumble of the Impala’s engine makes her turn around. The car pulls up beside her and Dean rolls the window down. He looks guilty. He always looks guilty when she fights with Dad, like it’s his fault somehow, even though it never is.

“Leave me alone, Dean.”

“Will you get in, please?”

“No.”

“Don’t be an idiot. You know I’ll just follow you until you get in.”

Sam’s momentarily tempted to take off running across the lawns, through the neighborhood’s backyards where the Impala can’t follow, just to make him get out of the car and chase after her. But none of this is his fault and he’s not the one she wants to punish. “Go away,” she says dully.

“It’s freezing, Sam. You’ll catch your death out there. Where are you gonna go, anyway?”

That’s a good question. Melissa’s house is at the other end of town, and things have been weird with her lately anyway. Sam doesn’t know where any of her other friends live, and even if she did, she’s not sure she wants to turn up on their doorsteps in the middle of the night like a crazy person, disheveled and not wearing any pants.

She sighs and walks around the car, opens the door and slips into the passenger seat. The leather is cold against her bare thighs but Dean’s turned the heat up as far as it will go. The warm air blasts dry and loud out of the vents, rattling slightly, and she stops shivering almost instantly. 

“I don’t wanna go back just yet,” she says.

“Then we won’t.” Dean slides Sam’s favorite mix tape in the deck, the one with all the Pink Floyd on it, and drives her through a part of town she’s never been to, past the school and the church, past the gas station where Dean works, along deserted country roads and then down a short dirt road that ends on a little hill overlooking some corn fields. By the time Dean shuts off the engine, Sam’s anger has faded completely, leaving her feeling calm, strangely empty.

There are no artificial lights anywhere in the vicinity, and once Dean turns off the headlights, nothing to compete with the light of the half moon above their heads, peeking through a patch in the clouds.

“Is this where you take girls? Classy.”

Even in the darkness, she can tell he’s blushing. “That’s none of your business.”

Sam smiles a little. “That means yes.”

She wonders what he’s done in this car, while it was parked here. Everything, probably. He’s probably fucked girls in the backseat, their legs wrapped around his waist, his lips on their throats. Maybe he just sits back and lets the girls blow him, with his jeans only open enough to get his dick out, his hand tangled in their hair and murmuring things like, “Yeah, that’s it, suck it, good girl,” like they do in pornos. Or maybe he goes down on _them_ , makes them squeal and squirm and shout. Sam crosses her ankles together, feeling her face heat up. She slides closer to Dean, pulls his arm around her shoulder, and thinks, _I bet he doesn’t cuddle them after, though._

“Are you cold?” Dean says, so quiet she almost doesn’t hear him over the music.

“Yes,” Sam says, even though she isn’t, not anymore. _Eclipse_ fades into _Hey You_.

“That’ll teach you to go running out in your underwear,” Dean says, but he pulls her closer. “Mrs Barcomb from across the street was looking out the window when I left the house. I bet the whole street will know about it by tomorrow.”

“Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better.” 

“Eh, let them talk. It’s probably the most exciting thing that’s happened on that street in the past decade.”

Sam closes her eyes. She can feel his breath against her temple and it makes her shiver. Dean must think she’s cold still because his hand moves briskly down the length of her arm, rubbing to warm her up. She feels light-headed and reckless, twists under the weight of his arm to bring her legs up and slings them over his lap. Her shoulder presses into the seat and she burrows closer against his side. Dean makes a surprised sound but he doesn’t push her away, doesn’t say anything, just lets his hand slide from her arm to the small of her back, big and warm through the faded flannel. Dean used to hold her like this when she was little, tucked close and safe against his side, but it’s been a long time, not since she hit puberty and suddenly they weren’t supposed to cuddle like this anymore. It feels familiar and completely different at the same time, sending a little shocking thrill down her spine.

Sam tucks her head under his chin, touches the tip of her nose to the skin of his neck, feels his adam’s apple bob when he swallows. His other hand lands on her ankle just above her sock, moves up to her knee and back down. It feels like permission, and it makes her a little crazy. Sam presses her lips to her brother’s jaw. It’s a tiny gesture, just a small tilt of her head, but it feels huge and life changing. Her mouth opens and the tip of her tongue peeks out to taste and this can’t possibly be interpreted as an innocent gesture. Dean gasps, his whole body jerking, his hand closing tight around her ankle.

_He’s letting me,_ Sam realizes with a jolt. _He’d let me do anything._

Sam shifts again, her uninjured hand curled in the collar of Dean’s shirt as she straddles his lap in one quick movement. The rough material of his jeans is shocking against her bare thighs, the steering wheel a hard press against the small of her back, her heartbeat so loud in her temples that she can hardly hear the music anymore. Dean’s hands settle automatically on her hips to steady her but he looks stunned, eyes wide and lips parted.

“Sam,” he says hoarsely, and Sam tips forward to kiss him, her loose hair falling down on each side of their faces like curtains.

For a terrifying moment Dean is shocked into stillness, stiff as a board under her, but it doesn’t last. When he raises his hands up it’s not to push her away, it’s to drag her closer, hands fisting tight in the back of her shirt.

It’s nothing like kissing Melissa and nothing at all like she imagined kissing Dean would be like in any of her fantasies. It doesn’t feel like a first kiss, there’s nothing chaste or tentative about it; it goes from zero to sixty in half a second, open mouthed and messy and rough. Dean’s tongue is in her mouth and he groans when she sucks on it, a low shocked sound that warms her all over. She feels dizzy but doesn’t want to stop, brings a hand to the side of his face to steady herself. It’s a mistake, though. The touch seems to snap Dean out of his trance and he jerks back suddenly, his hands closing tight around her upper arms. The strength of his grip is painful but it doesn’t even matter because Dean wants it too, he wants _her_ , and maybe that should scare her but it doesn’t. It makes her feel powerful.

“Dean,” Sam starts, but Dean’s shaking his head, his eyes shut tight, his face screwed up like he’s in pain. “Dean,” she repeats, “Look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. If you want to, then you can.” 

“You don’t get it, Sam.”

“No, I do, I get it. But just this once, okay? It can be just this once.” It’s a tone she’s used often on him, reasonable and wheedling all at once. _Can I have a beer, Dean? Just one, you know I can handle one beer_ or _Will you let me drive? Just for half an hour, I promise I’ll be careful._ It always works and Sam can’t even feel guilty about using it now. 

Dean’s on to her this time though, his mouth quirks like he wants to smile but won’t allow it. His hands are warm around her arms but his grip has loosened like he’s already given up. “Jesus, Sam, you can’t just--”

“I can,” she interrupts. “And if you don’t wanna then you can stop me.” 

He doesn’t stop her. He groans against her lips, his hands sliding under the edge of her shirt to touch the bare skin of her back and she smiles, kisses the corner of his mouth, his jaw, his cheekbone. “You wanna, right? I know you do.”

“Christ, Sam, you make me crazy,” he murmurs, slipping his hands free to work the buttons of her shirt open with unsteady hands. “Do you realize that? You prance around in nothing but panties and _my goddamn shirt_ and it makes me lose my freaking mind.”

“I don’t _prance_ ,” Sam says, pinching his shoulder hard, and he lets out a sound that’s half-yelp, half-laugh, grabbing her wrist and curling his other hand at the back of her neck to kiss her again. She used to tell herself that maybe if she actually kissed Dean it would feel all wrong, that it would hit her suddenly that this wasn’t at all what she wanted, and that finally, _finally_ she could get over this fucked up obsession with her brother. Yeah, not so much. She feels impossibly turned on, drunk on the sensation of Dean’s mouth on hers, on the hot press of his lips, the drag of his tongue against hers, the burn of his stubble on her chin, greedily drinking in every hitch in his breath.

Sam scratches her fingernails lightly along the short hairs at the back of his neck and exhales unsteadily. She can feel her face flush hotly when he opens her shirt and bares her breasts, bites her lower lip when he pulls back to look at her. She’d been in bed when Dad got home so she’s not even wearing a bra and it makes her feel exposed and a bit self-conscious, acutely aware of how small her breasts are, probably nothing at all like what he’s used to.

“Fuck,” Dean groans, running a hand up her stomach to cup one of her breasts, his callused thumb dragging roughly over her nipple. He leans forward to nuzzle the soft curve of them, his eyes closed like he’s in some perfect dream, looking blissed out.

“I... I’m not--”

“Shut up, Sam,” Dean says vehemently before closing his lips around her other nipple and sucking, firm and wet and so hot. It sends a jolt of pleasure down her spine and she gasps, surprised. She never gives her breasts much thought when she touches herself but this is something else, like a direct line to the pulsing heat between her legs. She groans and rocks down against him, blindly seeking pressure, and God, she can feel him, the swell of his dick trapped in his jeans. The ridge of his jeans is rough against the wet cotton of her panties but she wants more, grinds down harder, her fingers digging at the back of Dean’s neck.

Dean swears, groans her name, his mouth hot and open against her collarbone, her neck, her jaw even as he urges her up on her knees so he can tug her panties halfway down her thighs. Sam squeezes her eyes shut, embarrassed by how wet they are, gleaming slick in the low light, by the wild thatch of her pubic hair, by how her thighs are trembling uncontrollably. 

Dean’s forearm braces solid against the back of her thighs, palming her ass, and his right hand drags up the inside of her leg, so hot, and he says, “Sammy, look at me. Sam. Open your eyes.”

When she does, he rewards her by moving his hand further up, his wide hand cupping her pussy, fingers sliding over it wet and hot and easy. She lets out a startled gasp and Dean’s looking at her like he’s never seen her before, awed and flushed high on his cheeks. His mouth looks swollen and dark so she bends down to kiss him again, graceless and uncoordinated. His fingertips tease at her lips and she moans against his mouth, her body feeling melty and tingly all over, her mind going around in loops, _he’s touching me_ there _, Dean’s touching me, Dean’s going to make me come_. He angles his hand to press two fingers in her, God, so much thicker than her own, grinds the palm of his hand in firm circles around her clit and Sam loses any shred of self-control she had left. She braces herself on Dean’s shoulders and bears down against his hand and rocks hard, dimly aware of the slick wet filthy noise it makes, of how loud her breathing gets. His fingers crook just so inside of her, rubbing in slow firm circles in counterpart to the shift of her hips, and the overload of sensation is almost overwhelming, makes her crazy and desperate and loud, unable to control the breathy noises that are coming out of her mouth.

Dean’s murmuring nonsense encouragements against her mouth, telling her how hot she is, how wet, _come on, come on Sammy, Jesus,_ and when he tucks his head down to close his lips around her nipple and _sucks_ , the wave of pleasure builds up and crests, sudden and shocking in its intensity. She comes hard, harder than she ever has on her own, clenching tight around his fingers as she rides out wave after wave of her orgasm against the firm press of his hand.

It takes her a moment to come down, to gather her senses. She sucks in huge gulps of air, feeling sweat pooling at the dip of her spine and at the back of her knees. She opens her eyes to find Dean staring at her, looking shocked but maybe a little smug too. It makes her grin, sudden and wide.

“Holy shit,” she gasps eloquently, and he arches an eyebrow, like, _yeah, I know, I’m awesome_ and Sam laughs, slumping down on shaky legs. Her ass nudges the car horn by accident and the sudden noise makes them both startle. Sam uses the distraction to cup Dean’s dick through his jeans and that makes him jump even more, his eyes comically wide.

He protests when Sam tugs his belt open but it’s weak and Sam ignores it, focuses instead on how his breath hitches when she finds the slit in his underwear and wraps curious fingers around his cock. It jerks and leaks in her hand and Dean makes a funny wheezing sound but doesn’t push her hand away.

“I’ve never done this,” Sam admits. “Is that okay?”

“You don’t have to,” Dean says, but when his hand closes around her wrist it’s to guide her, not stop her. She likes the feel of him in his hand, hot and silky soft and so hard. 

“I’m just, I’m gonna,” she says, taking her hand away for a second with the intention of licking it, to make it wet, remembering Helen and her embarrassingly detailed account of giving her boyfriend a handjob, but halfway there she has another idea. She bites her lower lip and ignores the spike of hot shame that makes her flush all over again, watches Dean’s face as she brings her hand between her legs and runs her fingers through the mess there. She feels so over-sensitized that it makes her shiver and gasp, and the sound Dean makes is like nothing she’s ever heard before, shocked and pained and disbelieving.

“Jesus Christ, Sammy,” he groans, squeezing his eyes shut when she grips his dick again, her hand slick with her own juices. It’s filthy and intimate and almost like they’re fucking for real and Sam can’t look away.

She doesn’t really know what she’s doing but Dean doesn’t seem to care, his mouth open and wet against her neck, breathing loud and unsteadily. She adjusts her grip and he moans, his hand urging her to go faster until she finds a rhythm that seems to work for him. It’s over in no time at all. A minute of thrusting into her hand and Dean comes inside his boxers, splashing hot and wet over both of their hands, groaning loudly into her shoulder. Sam stares down at his lap and keeps on stroking him gently through the aftershocks, finds herself wishing she could have seen it better. Next time, they’ll have to be a lot more naked for this.

Dean looks shell-shocked when he pulls back to look at her and Sam smiles a bit, looking down at her hand.

“That was messy,” she says, the first thing to pop into her head. Dean laughs, surprised and loud, and leans in to kiss her smiling mouth. 

She can tell the exact moment when reality catches up to him, the afterglow fading to be replaced by the crushing realization of what they’ve done. His breathing slows down and he shudders whole-bodied, breaking the kiss, his shoulders tensing.

Sam pulls back to look at him and finds him looking overwhelmed, muted terror in his wide eyes.

“Shit. _Shit._. Sammy. I’m sorry, Sammy, I never should’ve...” 

“Hey. Hey, Dean, shhh, it’s alright. It’s no big deal. We’re okay. Everything’s gonna be alright.” She’s just repeating things she’s heard from him so often, over scraped knees, after nightmares, after close calls on hunts, after particularly nasty fights with Dad. It makes Dean let out a snort of something that’s almost laughter, dark and self-deprecating. He rubs a hand roughly over his mouth and won’t meet her eyes until Sam pries his hand away and forces him to look her in the eyes.

“Dean,” she says, serious and intent, her hands framing his face, “Look at me. Don’t apologize. It’s okay. It was _me_. _I_ wanted it.” She doesn’t let up until he lets out a harsh sigh, eyes flicking away from hers, and nods. He looks more resigned than reassured but Sam lets it go for now.

She climbs off of him and returns to the passenger seat, giving him his space. Dean clears his throat and resolutely doesn’t look at her as she wriggles to pull her panties back up and buttons up her shirt. His hands are unsteady when he cleans himself up quickly with a couple of tissues and Sam keeps her mouth shut when he rolls down the window and tosses the balled up wad of Kleenex out by the side of the road.

They’re silent all the way back to the house and Sam can almost feel the wheels turning in Dean’s head, isn’t surprised when he kills the engine and says, “That can’t happen again.”

“Whatever you want,” Sam says, her voice steady and reasonable even though it’s a lie. It _will_ happen again, Dean just doesn’t know it yet. “Whatever you decide.”

*

They’ve crossed the Ohio border by the time Sam finds out where they’re going. It’s late and the highway is deserted. The only other car in sight is Dad’s truck just ahead of them.

“Eureka, California.” It’s the first words Dean has said to her since they left the house, not counting the time he asked her if she wanted anything to eat from the gas station. He’s panicking, and she gets it. The word for that they’ve done is huge and ugly. She’s strangely okay with it, but it seems fitting that Dean should be freaking out enough for the both of them. He keeps stealing glances at her when he thinks she’s not looking, like maybe if they don’t make eye contact he can pretend that nothing happened.

It’s too dark to read so Sam fumbles in the glove compartment, moving guns and fake IDs until she finds a flashlight. She holds it in the crook of her neck with her chin while she flips to the right section of the road atlas.

“How long did Dad say we’d be there?”

Dean shrugs, keeping his eyes on the road. “He didn’t know.” A pause, then, “A couple of weeks, at least.”

Sam nods, holding the flashlight steady over the little dot on the map. “We should go see the redwoods while we’re there.”

Dean looks surprised when he looks at her, a quick startled glance before he turns back to the road. He smiles a bit, quiet and fond and maybe a bit relieved. The tension in his shoulders eases a fraction. “Yeah, Sammy. We could do that.”

Sam switches off the flashlight and brings her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knees.

It’s going to happen again, this thing between them. She knows it, she thinks Dean knows it too, deep down. It feels inevitable, like a force of nature. She smiles a secret smile with her head turned towards the passenger window. _Soon_ , she thinks.

*

Sam kisses Dean again in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, under a tree that makes her feel as small as an ant.

Dean’s been on his guard around her for the past couple of weeks, not cold but distant and wary. Sam’s not sure if it’s her he doesn’t trust or himself. But today’s different, a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, just the two of them and families of strangers milling around them, children shouting along the trails. The dappled sunlight casts a golden glow around Dean’s hair and he’s more relaxed than she’s seen him in a while. He’s grumbling something about black dogs in old forests but Sam’s not even listening, lets herself stare at the shape of his mouth, at the expressive tilt of his eyebrows.

She backs him up against an impossibly huge tree and kisses him, uses his gasp of surprise to slide her tongue in his mouth. Dean tenses up but not for long, he gives in just like she knew he would, kisses her long and warm, outside in broad daylight.

“You’re gonna be the death of me, Sammy,” he groans into her cheek.

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” she says, and he pulls back to look at her with wide eyes, a bit offended, a bit amused. Sam grins.

“You--” he starts in disbelief, and she silences him with another kiss, and she can feel him smiling against her lips, and she knows she’s won.

*

Sam gets her acceptance letter to Stanford the day before they leave California.

She sits on the Impala’s hood facing the Pacific ocean, Dean next to her, his leg a long warm line against hers and his arm around her middle. They’re parked on the edge of a cliff for one last look at the sea before they head back across the country, watching the seagulls and oystercatchers circle around the jagged rocks that jut out of the ocean like fingers.

Dean kisses the shell of her ear, then her jaw. “You like it here, Sammy?”

“Yeah.”

Dad has been gone almost the whole time they’ve been here so Sam and Dean have been playing house for a couple of weeks, a ridiculous game that obviously wasn’t going to last, like kids playing make believe. Dad was always going to come back and drag them somewhere else and Dean is still her _brother_ , they were never going to be normal young lovers for very long, but it was nice pretending, even for just a little while. Going to sleep with her face tucked in the crook of his neck, learning each other’s bodies in the morning light, kissing for hours and hours on the couch until her mouth felt tingly and over-sensitized.

She knew that fragile happiness wasn’t going to last. Dad’s back, there is still evil to hunt, and sooner or later, she’ll have to tell them about Stanford. She should feel guilty, maybe, that she hasn’t told Dean about any of it, hasn’t even told him about applying, but with half a year left to go before college starts, it seems like a lifetime away. She’s just waiting for the right moment.

“It’ll be good to get back on the road, though,” Dean says, and Sam hums something that isn’t a yes or a no, just acknowledgement that she’s listening.

Maybe she can convince Dean to come with her. He probably won’t, but maybe that doesn’t really matter. Because they’re Sam-and-Dean, and a couple of years of college aren’t going to change that. They’re solid, they’re written in the stones. He’ll see that, he’ll get it, he has to. She’ll make him understand. 

Sam looks at the sky and feels oddly hopeful. Dean loves her, they have their whole lives ahead of them, and the cool ocean breeze and the wide open sky feels a bit like freedom. She’ll be eighteen soon, no longer chained to this life that she’s never wanted. She can be anything she wants. 

Sam squeezes Dean’s hand in hers and leans her head against his shoulder. Yeah, she’ll make them understand. It’ll be fine. Everything’s going to be okay.


End file.
